Counsellor's Voice | A trip to Perth, Western Australia

I am honored to have the chance to visit Perth in Western Australia for a week in September 2019. It was the start of Spring when I got there and the weather was a bit cold, with 20ºC highest and 9ºC at the lowest. This is also one of the characteristics of Australia, which the temperature within the day can be varied for quite a bit. However, the normal temperature range in Perth should be slightly higher than what I experienced, around 16ºC – 22ºC during Spring time.

Upon the next day of our arrival, we had a campus tour in Canning College, a foundation course provider for all universities in Western Australia. Canning College is more of a high school style but with a small class scale, only around 10 students per class. Not a particularly big campus but it has all the facilities that students would need, for example, canteen, sports area, gym, band room etc. We were invited to join one of the science classes and the experience was quite fantastic. Teachers could always recognize all his/her students since the class size is small, experiments were carried out in classes which very much motivated students to learn. The learning style in Canning College is very different from Hong Kong, as there isn’t a lot of homework all students have to do is to actively participate in class.

Moreover, Canning College is located right next to Curtin University which students can always have a walk to and see if it is the right university for them. Therefore, it is not surprised that most students in Canning College would get into Curtin University afterwards.

We also went to The University of Notre Dame Australia in Fremantle, which is around 30 minutes from the city. The University of Notre Dame Australia is a private university and its scale is not big at all. However, the university has turned this characteristic into an advantage; they provide much more care to students than any of the other universities, making students feel like a second home there.

More than that, the university has bought and conserved over 40 buildings in the heart of Fremantle to form the campus, which makes it a town-like university. This is something you will never find in the other campuses.

People in Perth are always proud of its good weather, since they do not experience a lot of rainy days. But seems like I brought the rain to Perth as it was pouring when we were visiting Murdoch University. Because of the rain, we could not visit the farm and animal areas Murdoch University is famous for. Maybe we should be glad about it or otherwise it might take us a few hours to travel the whole area.

People in Perth are always proud of its good weather, since they do not experience a lot of rainy days. But seems like I brought the rain to Perth as it was pouring when we were visiting Murdoch University. Because of the rain, we could not visit the farm and animal areas Murdoch University is famous for. Maybe we should be glad about it or otherwise it might take us a few hours to travel the whole area.

Nonetheless, Curtin has applied lots of technologies onto its research areas which aim to tackle different topics, which is another remarkable achievement of Curtin.

The University of Western Australia was the last stop of our trip. The classical architecture gives a grand appearance to its visitors. Complemented by the greeneries, you might feel as if you are in a painting.

There are quite a number of animals you can find on campus, including rabbits, ducklings and peacock. I believe peacock is a rarely seen in any other campus!

Perth is not a very populated city, and to be honest, the city area is a little bit quiet on weekdays. Since many people in Perth do not live in the city area, they only go to the city to work, not a lot of people stay in the city area at night. However, the city comes alive on Thursdays and Fridays, where people eat out or grab a drink in the city after work.

IDP Education Consultant
Tom Lo